Chicago Fire Fall 3-2 to Seattle Sounders FC

CHICAGO (Saturday, June 7, 2014) – The Chicago Fire (2-4-8, 14 points) fell 3-2 to league-leading Seattle Sounders FC (10-3-2, 32 points) on Saturday night at Toyota Park. Both sides were reduced to ten men in the first half when Jhon Kennedy Hurtado and Obafemi Martins were sent off, and Homegrown product Harry Shipp notched a brace in a chippy affair that produced a total of seven yellows and two red cards.

The Fire head into the World Cup break but return to Toyota Park on Wednesday, June 18 at 7:30 p.m. CT to open the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup campaign in the fourth round by hosting the Pittsburgh Riverhounds (USL PRO). Tickets are currently on sale and available via Ticketmaster, www.Chicago-Fire.com, at the Toyota Park Box Office and by calling 888-MLS-FIRE.

“Points-wise, not great. Spirit-wise, I thought tonight was good. Difficult circumstances with the red card and all the stuff that went on tonight. What I liked about the team tonight: we fought, and we stuck up for each other. That's the positive out of it. The negative: we didn't get a result at home, obviously. Frustration is probably the word I would say right now.”

On if he had saw the reason for Obafemi Martins' sending-off

“No, I didn't, I haven't looked at a replay. I haven't seen it yet.”

On expecting officiating controversies

“I don't know. I thought both teams came out to try and win the game, which is important. Some decisions for us didn't go the right way, and you get frustrated with all that stuff; it spills over to your play a little bit. I'm not going to fault the effort of our players at all; we're not quite able to figure it out yet. We have good moments; we have patterns of play that are good, we look like we're a good side, and then we falter and get punished. It's frustrating. I hate to use the word, I keep saying it, but the balance is not quite there yet. No excuses with the three games in the week, but it's never easy. But I thought we kept going until the end; we could have gotten something out of the game. Obviously that third goal killed the game a little bit. Quincy [Amarikwa] had a great chance I think at 2-1, and then Juan [Luis Anangono] had a good chance at 3-2. That's football. That's the tough part about it. And I'm sitting there just frustrated, and you guys are fans of us, as frustrated as you are; I'm sitting there going, ‘why can't we get it sorted out?’ But signs are good, young guys are doing okay. Harry [Shipp] did good tonight, so hopefully we can turn the corner.”

On creating chances and goals in play

“We created some good chances. If you look at the experience on their team, it's a pretty experienced team; and we're a little bit younger and naive, and all the guys we have out...there's no excuses. But I'm not going to fault my guys; I thought they fought right to the end, tried to get something out of the game, but just couldn't quite get something out of it. I'm not going to turn to the excuse of ‘we got guys out,’ because, I thought the players that played tonight played well for us. Big, important thing is, take the punishment, if you like, and move on. You have to. We have an Open Cup game next, hopefully we can get through that round; I think there's another round of Open Cup, and then we get to get back into MLS. So we're still in the picture, which is always good; although we have to start winning games, obviously. But the progression of the team playing-wise, I thought, showed some fight tonight, which is important.”

“Anytime you go with two feet, it alarms referees for some reason. I think that Jhon had no other opportunity to block the ball, and to go with his feet sort of showing. It didn't catch the player; give a penalty kick, but don't give a sending-off. Or give a sending-off, but no penalty kick, whatever you want to do, but I just think the double thing was just, for me, not a great decision. I haven't seen it, but it looked like Jhon was just trying to block the ball; it wasn't malicious, it was low, and it looked like he was trying to get his feet sorted out. But, again, the rules are what they are, so I can't really argue with it. But I struggled a little bit all night with the officiating. I thought it was a little bit one-way, but that's my opinion.”

On the World Cup break serving as a chance to get healthy

“You have two main guys out, Patrick Nyarko and Mike Magee are out at the moment, so you have to help them get ready for play coming in the next couple of weeks. We have the Open Cup, which is in our break. Alex is not 100%; obviously played a little bit tonight, but he's not close to what he can play like at the moment. So we have a little bit of time to get our guys healthy and hopefully start the next MLS game out with a win, because we need to start winning, obviously, to have any chance to do well this year. But I think the emergence of the young players is my focus, and I think they're doing okay. We're not wishing the season away at all; I make sure that we're ready to play each game and ready to go. I thought again, we didn't flop and buckle under in this game, which we could have done against a good side. Each game we've played, other than maybe a couple, we've been right there, right in the match, right and ready to go; but the naiveté of our team, and it's not a slight on them, it's just reality, we can't figure it out quite yet. It's frustrating as a coach, and the players are frustrated. I think that for us, it's making sure that we build on it, and make sure we get positive with it.”

Jeff Larentowicz, Chicago Fire Midfielder

On tonight’s loss:

“This may be the toughest so far. You might want to put it up there with the Real Salt Lake game, but they came at us – Seattle didn’t. They were content with their lead waiting for us, but somehow they still got the better of us which is difficult.”

On where the team goes from here heading into the break:

“We have to decide. Everyone has to go home this week and figure out if they’re content with where we are, think about if they’re content coming in after games saying, ‘Oh well, we did alright – we didn’t score or we didn’t finish that chance,’ or they can make a difference, they can make a change. I don’t know what happened around the league, but we’re at the bottom of the conference – we have to make a move and we have to stop being content with half chances and one goal losses at home.”

On the team’s effort:

“It’s not the effort, it’s not the effort. It’s critical moments in the game when players make a difference or don’t make a difference, and at the moment we’re not making that difference.

On how to make that difference:

“We can’t be content. We can’t come in and say, ‘We did alright.’ There’s no attendance award, we have to come and we have to do something.”

On the goals for the remainder of the season:

“I think the goal is always to make the playoffs. We can’t come in and say we’re going to be the MLS champs - we have to work for it, we have to fight for it. We have to fight to get into the playoffs period. Then you can move on and rewrite your goals. At the moment - sure we’ve hung with teams, sure we’ve played well against top competition, but we haven’t gotten over that hump. Like I said it’s not about sprinting harder, running faster or jumping higher, it’s not about that because we do that. It’s about the critical moments when we have to make a difference, that’s what we have to focus on.”

On the Open Cup as an opportunity to turn things around:

“Winning is contagious, I think. You catch it and you want it. We haven’t won, it’s almost like we enjoy coming in and being content with what’s going on. So, sure we win the first round and we play another game before we play a MLS game, so sure we can get the wheels moving, we can get guys healthy and can start pushing on. But you can see we’re in games. It’s not about personnel; it’s just about those little things. Against different competition in the Open Cup maybe we can sharpen those edges.”

Quincy Amarikwa, Chicago Fire Forward

On the chemistry with Harry Shipp:

“I think Harry and I are building good chemistry up-top. It’s translating on the field and it’s turning into goals. We just need to figure it out as a team now, making sure we can prevent teams from scoring multiple goals on us so we can come away with three points. Tonight we can build from it, learn from it and move on.”

Harry Shipp, Chicago Fire Forward

On play leading up to the goal, scoring and the result:

“I was trying to show up in places to find the ball, but it was hard. I was getting frustrated, I think everyone was getting frustrated, with our lack of keeping it. Right before the first goal I started feeling a little more comfortable, kind of feeling the touch, and then I hit a good shot. After that the momentum switched and I think we were back in the game. In the second half we gave up that third goal, which killed us, but I think that besides that we really kept the ball, we possessed the ball. We did things we know we can do. We had a chance to tie it up at 2-2 and to make it 3-3, but unfortunately it didn’t go in. I scored two goals, but I’m not going to be happy unless I score two more and we win 4-3. That’s the difference in this feeling and difference in New York when we won 5-4.”

On the chippy play during the game:

“I think we have to keep our focus. There was a lot of extracurricular stuff going on after every tackle, there were people complaining, but I think you just have to keep your head and focus. I think we did a good job in the second half of just moving the ball and playing simple – keeping the ball and interchanging especially through the midfield. It was hard for them to keep the ball. I think if we had done that all 90 minutes it might be a different story.”

Notes:

- The brace marked Shipp’s second multi-goal game of the season. Shipp scored a hat trick on May 10 against the New York Red Bulls.

The Chicago Fire Soccer Club is a premier franchise of Major League Soccer (MLS). We provide an engaging and authentic soccer experience for the city of Chicago and for all of our supporters around the world. The Fire enters its 17th season in 2014 looking to continue its winning legacy both on and off the pitch. The Club proudly embodies the spirit and diversity of our sport, and since its inception in 1997, the Fire have captured an MLS Cup in 1998, and remains the only MLS team to have won the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup four times. The Fire's home venue is Toyota Park, a world-class soccer stadium located minutes from downtown Chicago in Bridgeview, Ill. For more information on the Fire and to purchase tickets, please visit the Club's official website at www.Chicago-Fire.com.